


the possibility of the stars

by saiditallbefore



Series: where no man has dared to go [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adventure, F/F, Misunderstandings, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26359954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/pseuds/saiditallbefore
Summary: “Of course I’m coming with you,” Jane told Nebula.Nebula made an unreadable expression.  “Things might get dangerous.”
Relationships: Jane Foster & Guardians of the Galaxy Team, Jane Foster/Nebula
Series: where no man has dared to go [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539868
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: We Die Like Fen 4: We Lived to Die Afen





	the possibility of the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearnedFoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts).



Jane didn’t intend to become a criminal. She was a scientist— or she had been, back on Earth. Her ambitions when she’d left her home planet had been to see the galaxy, to meet whatever beings were out there.

But when she and Nebula had landed on a planet called Krylor in their stolen spaceship, Nebula had turned to her.

“You don’t have to come with me,” she’d said. 

Jane was pretty sure Nebula was some sort of criminal. Unless hot-wiring a spaceship was a trick that everyone in space knew? 

( _Was_ that a trick that everyone in space knew?)

Even so, Nebula was the only person in space Jane knew. She was reserved and abrasive, but she was also fascinating. And she seemed to respect Jane— or at least, she seemed to respect Jane’s abilities.

“Of course I’m coming with you,” Jane told Nebula. 

Nebula made an unreadable expression. “Things might get dangerous.”

“I’ve been in dangerous situations before,” Jane said. Puente Antiguo, London, _Asgard_ … She couldn’t channel the power of the cosmos anymore, but she could still take care of herself.

Nebula smiled, just a little. “Let’s sell this thing.” She jerked her head toward the ship they’d stolen. “And maybe we can buy a ship with enough room to breathe.”

* * *

Their new ship— bought semi-legally, so at least Jane could stop worrying about space cops— was a good deal bigger than the other one. Besides the cockpit, there was a tiny kitchen (was it still called a kitchen, on a spaceship?) and two bedrooms. Well, bedroom-like spaces. 

Really, they were each about the size of a closet, but they had beds. Bunks. It was good enough for Jane. 

Jane set her bag down on her bed and unpacked it. A change of clothes, a photo album, a bound copy of her research— the only things she’d brought with her from Earth. 

She’d left that entire life behind. There was no room for regret now.

Jane stored her album and research below her bunk. Then she rejoined Nebula in the cockpit.

There, Jane settled into the co-pilots’ seat, next to Nebula and watched as the foreign stars grew nearer and nearer. All regret fled from her; _this_ was why she’d come to space in the first place. 

“Where to next?” she asked.

Nebula smirked. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

* * *

They landed on a nearly-barren planet— desolate and beautiful. 

“You should stay inside,” Nebula said, as she grabbed a pair of metal batons.

“Why?” Jane asked. “What’s going on?”

Nebula scowled, and pointed at the only building in sight: an ungainly metal monstrosity. “I’m going to blow up that building.”

Before Jane could ask any more questions, Nebula had scrambled out of the ship. Jane watched her march across the landscape until she was almost out of sight— a single blot of blue amidst the brown.

Jane sat and waited, wondering when she’d become a person who was perfectly fine with blowing up buildings as long as there was a good reason for it. 

Maybe she’d always been this person, and meeting aliens had only exacerbated those qualities.

Nebula had been gone for a while. How long did it take to blow up a building? 

Just as Jane began to worry that Nebula had run into some kind of trouble, the building in the distance went up in flames. Jane squinted her eyes against the glare, searching.

A familiar blue figure ran towards the ship and climbed inside. Nebula settled in the pilots’ seat and began the takeoff sequence as Jane carefully scrutinized her.

A dark blue liquid was dripping from a cut on Nebula’s cheek.

“You’re bleeding,” Jane said. 

Nebula wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, smearing the blood. “It’s nothing.” 

Maybe it was. What did Jane even know? Nebula was a completely different species. Maybe she healed more quickly. Maybe this kind of danger was just normal for her.

Jane had no idea how to break the silence.

“It was a base. And storage facility,” Nebula finally said.

Jane looked at her in surprise. Nebula hadn’t seemed like the kind of person to offer explanations.

“It belonged to— I knew them. I know who they work for. I wanted to send them a message.”

“What’s the message?”

Nebula looked at Jane, her wide black eyes full of conviction. “That I’m still alive. And I’m coming for them.”

* * *

Back on Earth, when Jane told people she was originally from California, they had a tendency to picture beaches and big cities. 

Truth was, she’d grown up in _Northern_ California— rural Northern California, at that. She’d spent long summer days hiking and nights stargazing. 

And, more relevant to her current situation, she’d learned to shoot from her granddad. She’d never shot at anything but targets, and had never used anything but a hand-me-down .357, but she knew a thing or two.

So when Nebula put a blaster into her hands and pointed her at an insultingly large target, Jane was prepared.

Jane pulled the trigger— there was less resistance than she expected— half a dozen times, then looked at the target. None of the shots were right on the bullseye, but they were neatly clustered near the center.

“You’ve done this before,” Nebula said. There was a slight quirk to her lips.

“Only with targets,” Jane said.

“Good.”

* * *

Occasionally, Nebula would get messages. Some were sent to the ship’s computer; some were sent directly to a comm she wore on her wrist. (Jane had one, too— a present from Nebula. She very carefully didn’t ask where the other woman had gotten it from.)

Jane had only asked who the messages were from once. Nebula had snarled and given the message console a dark look before deleting all the incoming messages and stomping off to her own tiny quarters on their ship.

Jane hadn’t asked about the messages again after that. But it left her curious. Nebula disliked most people, but she’d cared enough to give _someone_ her new comm codes— but not to answer their calls. Like many things about Nebula, it was a puzzle.

* * *

Nebula had claimed that the best food to be found in this quadrant of the galaxy was in a little dive, on the back streets of one of the larger cities on Midela. Jane was a bit hesitant— she could eat most of the same foods as Nebula, despite their physical differences, but Nebula’s tastes were certainly more exotic than hers. Or perhaps Jane was still too used to Earth food. 

The street was dark and narrow, and filled with heavily armed aliens of various species. Jane might have been afraid, if she were alone. She _was_ worried, at first. But after a third person crossed the street to avoid them— to avoid _Nebula_ — Jane started to get the feeling that she was accompanied by one of the more dangerous people there.

Nebula rarely looked happy, but her expression had lightened by the time they reached the hole-in-the-wall restaurant she’d told Jane about. 

“I’ll order for you,” she told Jane. “The owner is a little—”

Nebula dove to the ground, pushing Jane down in front of her. Just above their heads, where they had been standing, a blaster shot hit the building.

“Are they shooting at _us_?” Jane asked.

Nebula shushed her. Then she whispered, “Just at me.” She pulled a blaster out of the holster on her hip and fired half a dozen times in the direction the other shot had come from.

Right. Jane supposed that made slightly more sense. 

“On my count, get back to the ship,” Nebula said. 

Jane nodded sharply.

“One,” Nebula began. “Two—” She cut herself off with a hiss of pain, pressing one hand to her shoulder. Jane could see blue blood seeping out from the wound, onto Nebula’s clothes and fingers.

Nebula fired off a few more shots at their unseen attackers. “Go!” she told Jane.

Jane didn’t need to be told twice. She kept her head down as she hurried through the warren of streets, back to where they had left the ship. 

Half a dozen people in masks and body armor stepped into the street, cutting Jane and Nebula off. Jane stopped short, glancing over at Nebula for direction.

Nebula grimaced. Then she pressed her blaster into Jane’s hand. 

“Nebula,” Jane began.

“Get to the ship,” Nebula said. “They’re after me.”

“ _Nebula_ ,” Jane said again, but she wasn’t sure what to add. 

It didn’t matter; Nebula squared her shoulders and walked toward their attackers. She held her injured arm close to her body, and her two metal batons in her other hand. 

Watching her fight was like watching a ballet, or an athlete in their prime. Jane had never watched her fight before, and watching her now, fighting with only one good arm, was amazing.

But Nebula had told her to get to the ship, and Jane didn’t have enough faith in her own aim to try and shoot any of the attackers herself. She clutched the blaster tightly and ran.

She didn’t look back until she reached the ship. Nebula was still making her way toward the ship, still fighting off her attackers.

And then— one of them shot Nebula in the leg and she went down. Jane shot at the attackers, but she wasn’t sure if she hit any of them. And before she could do anything more, the attackers had fled, taking Nebula with them.

* * *

If Nebula were here, she’d probably tell Jane to cut her losses. To save her own neck.

She was, after all, a pragmatist at heart.

But Nebula was the first person Jane had met when she left Earth. The first friend that she’d made. The person who’d been by her side on this journey.

Jane wasn’t about to leave her behind.

But at the same time, she clearly wasn’t going to be able to rescue Nebula on her own. 

Her eyes strayed to the communicator. Maybe it was time to figure out who was always leaving messages for Nebula.

It took a bit of work to figure out exactly how the comm worked, and then more work to figure out how to make a call on it. But finally, Jane had it working.

It barely rang— or whatever the space equivalent was— before the person on the other side answered.

“Nebula?”

The image on the comm screen was fuzzy and discolored, but Jane thought the figure looked like a human man. The voice was definitely masculine.

“That’s why I’m calling,” she said. “Nebula’s in trouble.”

The figure on the other end listened as she gave a short explanation. Then he said, “Give me your coordinates.”

Right. Jane could figure that out. “Hold on, just a second.”

“If this is a trap…” He let his voice trail off threateningly.

Jane swallowed. “I understand.”

* * *

The ship that came was at least three times as large as the little one that Jane and Nebula shared. Jane stood in the doorway of their ship, blaster clutched in her hand, and waited for her backup.

The figures that exited the other ship were aliens, but that was only to be expected. None of them resembled Nebula at all. There was a green— woman? Jane still wasn’t sure how genders translated— with a sword on her hip, a paler green woman with large black eyes and antennae, a shirtless, muscular man covered in odd tattoos, and, perhaps strangest of all, a human-looking man, a racoon, and a small tree.

More importantly, the racoon was waving a _very_ large gun at her.

Jane put her hands in the air, hoping the sign for ‘don’t shoot’ was universal. “You’re Nebula’s friends?” 

The raccoon cackled. “Friends? That’s a good one.”

“Nebula is my sister,” the woman with a sword said.

Jane tried not to look too incredulous. Genetics were a complicated matter, and they’d never been her specialty— certainly not alien genetics.

“They’re adopted,” the human-looking man said. Then, in a stage whisper, “Don’t ask.”

“Right,” Jane said. “Look, I just need some help finding her. Can you help me?”

Sword-woman stepped closer. “How do you know my sister?”

“I used an Einstein-Rosen bridge— a wormhole,” Jane explained. “And I met Nebula on the other side. We’ve been traveling together ever since.”

At this explanation, sword-woman looked a bit less angry. She turned and began to confer in a low voice with the others.

The human-looking man looked around awkwardly, rubbing his hands together. “So. Wormhole lady,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Earth,” Jane said reflexively, before remembering that Asgard— and probably the rest of the galaxy— had a different name for it. “Oh, wait, you might know it as—”

But before she could finish her sentence, the man started laughing. Jane looked around, but it seemed she was the only one not in on the joke.

“Peter Quill,” he said with a grin, holding out his hand. “I’m originally from Missouri.”

Jane shook his hand, an answering grin creeping across her face. “California.”

* * *

Peter Quill had been abducted by aliens when he was eight years old. He cheerfully told Jane this alarming fact about himself, before asking if she’d brought any music with her. He then introduced the rest of his companions, informing Jane that they were known as the Guardians of the Galaxy.

“Alright, alright, alright,” the raccoon— Rocket— finally exclaimed, loud enough for Jane to hear. “I get it, we’re going after her.”

“Thank you,” Jane said.

“You can thank us later. Your girlfriend is a lot of trouble.” Rocket gestured for Jane to follow him into the Guardians’ ship.

“I am Groot,” Groot agreed.

Jane was momentarily taken aback. That had to be a translation error of some kind— unless there had been a misunderstanding? She pushed the thoughts away. There would be time to dwell on that later.

“How are we going to find Nebula?” Jane asked, following the Guardians into the cockpit.

Gamora pressed a few keys, then projected something up on the screen. “I implanted a tracker in her comm bracelet.”

“She’s probably removed it by now,” Peter said.

“I haven’t removed mine.” Gamora held up her wrist, showing off a comm bracelet identical to Nebula’s. The other Guardians gave her odd looks, and she shrugged. “We’ve been trying to get along.”

* * *

They tracked Nebula to a moon in the next system over. As the ship landed, Peter turned to Jane.

“Alright, we’ll go in and get her. Groot, you stay here with Jane.”

“I am Groot!”

“I’m going with you,” Jane said. She still hadn’t let go of the blaster that Nebula had given her.

Peter glanced at Gamora, and they seemed to share a silent conversation. Finally, Gamora said, “Fine. Just don’t get yourself killed.”

Jane had no intention of _that_. She followed the Guardians closely, as they crept past a series of abandoned warehouses. There was a faint, echoing noise coming from one at the far end, and it seemed they were heading for that one.

When they finally reached it, Drax threw the door open violently, and Rocket, Gamora, and Peter all followed him inside, weapons drawn. Then, they slowly lowered their weapons.

From behind them, Jane could see the inside of the warehouse. There was Nebula, badly injured but still standing, surrounded by the bodies of her kidnappers.

“What are you idiots doing here?” Nebula asked.

Peter pointed a thumb back at Jane. “Your girlfriend was worried about you.”

Jane hurried forward, shoving her blaster into her belt. “You’re hurt!”

Nebula scoffed. “I’m fine.”

Jane ghosted a hand over Nebula’s injured shoulder. “You’re really not.”

Nebula’s face did something Jane couldn’t quite describe. “You didn’t have to come for me,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” Jane said. “We’re—” friends? Partners? 

Nebula kissed her. It was hard and bruising and just a little bloody. Then she pulled away with a wince. “I’m going to go steal some of the idiots’ medical supplies.”

Jane laughed. “I don’t think that technically counts as stealing.”

“Guess we’ll find out.”


End file.
